As the closer in question was Jeff Atwood, I'm guessing that the close was the correct action, and I'm just learning the logic behind it.

If "How do I install this programming library?" is off-topic for Stack Overflow, then presumably it should be treated as a "How do I install X?" question. I assume that "How do I install X?" would be within the scope of at least Super User (if not Server Fault or Ask Ubuntu).

It's possible that the question was a bad question, and Jeff opposes migrating bad questions. But if that's the case, shouldn't it have been closed as "Not A Real Question"?

It probably could have been migrated, but I suspect this is the reason that Jeff didn't.
–
Cody GrayMay 16 '11 at 1:30

@Cody Gray: I tried to address this possibility in the second last paragraph.
–
Andrew GrimmMay 16 '11 at 2:33

Ah, yes. I was on my iPhone earlier, so I didn't read as carefully as I normally would have... To answer your question, I (and I think he, but I can't really speak for others) tend to close questions that are off-topic but not worthy as migration as plain "off-topic". I reserve NARQ for things that would be on-topic, but are simply poor, invalid, or unanswerable questions. In the end, it's probably irrelevant which you choose--the point is to get the bad questions closed before they start attracting too many answers.
–
Cody GrayMay 16 '11 at 5:05

3 Answers
3

Generally when a question is closed without a migration, it's because it's highly likely it would be closed on the appropriate destination site, and propagating bad questions is not the goal of site-to-site migrations.

In this case, it looks like the question is too basic/broad and the user doesn't appear to have put any thought into asking it. The error describes what's wrong and how to resolve it, yet there's no indication the user did anything other than stop and create a question once he encountered an error.

It might be a style thing, but when I close as NARQ on Programmers, I do it when a question's content is on-topic, but the question is bad. But if it's off-topic and NARQ, I generally don't want to give the impression that the content of the question is on-topic (and with some editing or a re-ask it'll fly) so off-topic takes precedence.

Of course, I also leave a comment explaining the asker's recourse, but that's really untenable on Stack Overflow.

And such questions are closed as off-topic rather than NARQ?
–
Andrew GrimmMay 16 '11 at 0:41

5

@Andrew It might be a style thing, but when I close as NARQ on Programmers, I do it when a question's topic is on-topic, but the question is bad. But if it's off-topic and NARQ, I generally don't want to give the impression that the content of the question is on-topic, and with some editing or a re-ask it'll fly, so off-topic takes precedence. Of course, I also leave a comment explaining the asker's recourse, but that's really untenable on Stack Overflow.
–
user149432May 16 '11 at 0:43

Don't. Migrate. Crap.

Off Topic, rather than Not A Real Question?
–
Andrew GrimmMay 16 '11 at 22:38

12

@Andrew, @Jeff: It's actually not complete crap, it could be a valid question from a complete newbie (inasmuch as we embrace the non-googlers). But there are a ton of far better duplicates on SU, SF, UL and AU already. So even if rule 1 (don't migrate crap) is not totally clear-cut, rule 2 (don't migrate endless trails of duplicates) definitely applies.
–
GillesMay 17 '11 at 0:28